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2015 in Review

In a hostage to fortune posting made on Jan 1st last year I laid out my wargaming plans for 2015 and I haven’t done too badly at getting them done.

Dux Britannarium

My forces for Dux Britannarium are now just about finished, I’ve got enough painted models for an extended campaign with Scotti, Picts, Gwyr y Gogledd  or normal British.  I’d need to do some more painting if any force got huge numbers of reinforcements, but the project is largely complete.  The annoying thing is that my regular opponent for Dux, Paul Kyriakos, has returned to Greece and we had to finish off our campaign.  To wind it all up we staged a climactic battle in which he won a hard fought victory with his Gwyr y Gogledd under their leader Pwyll.  Dúnchad, my Scotti noble, covered himself with glory but his Raiders’ morale collapsed and he had to flee the field.    I really enjoyed this campaign and I’m hoping that Paul will be able to visit us again in Edinburgh and that we can revisit this old rivalry from time to time.

I Ain’t Been Shot Mum

British

I finally got round to painting up a load of 6mm British for IABSM, a company of infantry and  loads of support, basically enough to do the Blenneville or Bust campaign or the late war battles in the  Cymru Am Byth scenario pack.   It cheers me up to know that I now have forces for both sides and don’t have to rely on anyone else if I want to put on a game.

Chain of Command

Chain of Command has gone on the back-burner a bit.   I’ve played a good few games, but no campaigns, and I have painted a few supports.    Plans to extend my CoC activities out of Normandy came to nothing.    Another year has gone by without me making any 15mm bocage hedges.

Santa

A Swedish Secret Santa sent be this rather nice model for Christmas. Thanks whoever you are, I’ll have to do the Kampfgruppe von Luck campaign now.

Blucher

Most of my effort this year has been directed at a game that didn’t even figure in by plans, Blucher from Sam Mustapha.  What to say?  I played the game once, went out and bought it and rebased everything Napoleonic in my collection.  Blucher is not a game that appeals to everyone, but it does what I want extremely well.  Large scale battles that feel like large scale battles and which you can fight to a conclusion in a day.  Simple rules that you can remember after a few games and then just play off the playsheet.  The rules are incredibly subtle with complex effects arising from simple mechanics.  I love them.

Dragon Rampant

Another unexpected arrival.  I played Lion Rampant a couple of times and enjoyed the game a lot, though it did not seem very historical.  Heard about Dragon Rampant and did some work pulling together old fantasy toys into coherent forces for the game (more rebasing).  Still haven’t played a game though, the rules only arrived just before Christmas.

Painting Challenge

Once again I took part in the TooFatLardies Painting Challenge run by Richard Avery (thanks again Richard) and surprised myself by surpassing last years total and clocking up more than 2,000 points for the year.  All this despite completely stalling in early September and painting virtually nothing for three months.   I put my high total down to Richard’s generosity in giving large numbers of points for rebasing, a task he hates but which I find really rather easy, dare I say enjoyable?

Events

Ran Deep Fried Lard again, it went well despite their being carnage in the streets of Musselburgh due to Ladies’ Day at the local racecourse.  Attendance was up on last year and everyone seemed to have fun, though the evening activities were disrupted by the races fallout.   I’ll be running the event again for 2016, hopefully on June 18th to avoid Ladies’ Day.    I managed to make it over to Crisis in Antwerp again this year.  Along with some other members of the South East Scotland Wargames Club I had a fun weekend away with too much beer.  And we ran a participation game of Galleys, Guns and Glory, a game of renaissance naval combat which we also ran at Targe in Kirriemuir.

I got a fair amount accomplished, but what happened to the autumn?

 

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1 Response

  1. A very strong year. Like you, I am looking forward to playing with Dragon Rampant in the coming year.
    Wishing you the best for 2016.
    Michael

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